Wednesday, May 18, 2016

ICMC16: FIPS Inside

Canada doesn't have the same legal requirements to use FIPS 140-2 validated cryptography, but it's handled by risk management and is strongly desired. They put verbiage in their contracts around this, and also require that the modules are run in FIPS mode.

If you are not using a FIPS 140-2 validated module, we consider it plaintext. So, if cryptography is required, then you need to use an approved algorithm, in an approved manner with sufficient strength.

Vendors can choose to validate the entire box or just the cryptography itself. The smaller the boundary, the longer you can go between revalidating.

A vendor may incorporate a validated module from another vendor (eg a software library) into their product. CMVP recommends that you get a letter from them confirming exactly what you're getting. Writing crypto is hard - so reuse makes a lot of sense.

When you are considering leveraging someone else's validated module, look at what is actually "insdie". For example, what module is generating the keys?